Thursday, June 30, 2005

NameVoyager

Here's a cool Java applet. NameVoyager lets you dynamically graph the popularity of most common names since the 1880s.

The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager is an interactive portrait of America's name choices. Start with a "sea" of nearly 5000 names. Type a letter, and you'll zoom in to focus on how that initial has been used over the past century. Then type a few more letters, or a name. Each stripe is a timeline of one name, its width reflecting the name's changing popularity. If a name intrigues you, click on its stripe for a closer look.

2 comments:

Pete, that's funny. You should also follow the link to Hans Muller's blog entry. He describes how he discoverd NameVoyager by looking over someone's shoulder during a meeting. No doubt the other guy in the meeting had just read your blog -- or Bob's.